There is a continuing demand for refinery products, including gasoline, distillates and gaseous fuels. Because of the energy crisis, petroleum refiners are often forced to work with heavier, often hydrogen deficient and high impurity feeds. Also, there is a growing pressure to utilize every fraction of the so-called barrel, including light refinery gases in the effort to optimize liquid fuel production.
In the present concept, a refinery scheme for processing whole crude is proposed, in which a carbon-hydrogen fragment contributing material and desalted crude are mixed with one another and reacted by contact with a cracking or acid function catalyst under conditions to produce products of quality and yield superior to that obtainable heretofore. The cracking operation may occur in the presence of a hydrogen activating function.